Nordic markets had a level start but jumped up on better than expected international news later on in the session. Norway’s fiscal budget for 2011 is based on above trend growth. very low unemployment and comes in at a deficit of 128 million NOK for non-oil items, on par with 2010. Moody’s warned this morning that it may downgrade Ireland again due to lingering banking sector issues. Later in the afternoon, the rating agency’s analyst told a conference in Warsaw, that the agency is happy about the implementation of the austerity plan in Greece and if the positive development continues, it may foresee a positive surprise in the making.
The Bank of Japan cut rates to zero and set up asset purchase program in an admission that the Japanese economy has been losing steam mainly due to the ultra-strong Yen. Japan is also interested in a free-trade pact with Europe according to reports coming out of ASEM summit being held in Brussels. The PMs of Japan and China ran into each other somewhere in the toil... ermm corridor area of the aforementioned ASEM meeting and exchanged pleasantries about islands and that it would not be wise to have relations go down the... well you know the analogy.
Eniro regained some of the ground it lost after announcing it was negotiating new terms with its lending banks after it announced that the new purchase directory in Sweden has been a great success so far. Lundbeck announced that it has signed an agreement with Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co., Ltd providing Lundbeck with exclusive rights to develop and commercialise an adenosine A2a antagonist. ContextVision rose nearly 30% after announcing it had signed a contract with Medison for Real-time Volumetric Ultrasound Imaging
Nokia’s MeeGo (Nokia & Intel initiated Linux-based open source mobile operating system project) chief Ari Jaaksi has resigned the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat reports. MeeGo is seen as Nokia’s answer to Apple’s iPhone and Android-based phones from other competitors and the first MeeGo device is due out soon, which makes the timing rather curious.
Ex-trader Jerome Kerviel, who caused Societe Generale 5 billion Euro losses, got a year in jail for every billion lost. The last two years do not quite bring full bang for buck, for those are on conditional release.
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